January 20, 2012
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Media Contact: Torange Yeghiazarian
phone number: 510.593.4749
Email: torange@goldenthread.org
Golden Thread Productions Presents
“What Do the Women Say?”
A Celebration of International Women’s Day
Pondering the Solo
A conversation with four Middle Eastern
women performers: Denmo Ibrahim, Jennifer
Jajeh,
Rohina Malik and Maryam Rostami
March 8 at 8:00 p.m.
La Pena Cultural Center, 3105 Shattuck Ave. Berkeley
Tickets 510-849-2568 x20
www.goldenthread.org
San Francisco Bay Area – As media pundits ask what role the women of the Middle East play after the
Arab Spring, Golden Thread invites a dramatically diverse group of women performers to dive deep in
conversation about their recent work. From Jennifer Jajeh navigating the thorny terrain of
Palestinian identity in I HEART HAMAS: AND OTHER THINGS I’M AFRAID TO TELL YOU, to Denmo Ibrahim’s
highly physical BABA spanning an epic journey of an Egyptian father and daughter –both shows have
toured nationally – the Bay Area has witnessed a surge of solo performances by women of Middle
Eastern background. Just last year, Iranian American drag queen Maryam Rostami debuted her
transgressive PERSEPOLIS, TEXAS: FOBSPRING TO DRAG QUEEN, and Rohina Malik performed five different
Muslim women in UNVEILED. Profound, rambunctious and illuminating, this new generation of solo
women performers tackles themes of displacement, dual loyalties and entitlement to expand definitions
of citizenship, activism and womanhood.
Each year Golden Thread Productions celebrates International Women’s Day by highlighting the work of
Middle Eastern women artists. In 2011, the program featured a ‘call and response’ dramatic reading of
selections from prison memoirs of Iranian novelist, Shahrnush Parsipur and Egyptian writer and
physician, Nawal el Saadawi. The 2009 program was dedicated to the women of Gaza, featuring a
dramatic reading of blog postings by Majeda Al Saqqa, the poetry of Deema Shehabi and Dina Omar,
and performance by Al Juthoor Dance Company. Other highlights included staged reading of THE BODY
WASHER by Rosemary Toohey, poetry of Haleh Hatami and Elmaz Abinader, and original dance
performances by Lana Nasser. Golden Thread is dedicated to presenting the rich diversity of Middle
Eastern perspective and experience while supporting countless artists in various stages of their career.
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The evening’s program includes guest artists performing a brief excerpt of their work followed by a
conversation about the creative process, joys and perils of self-producing, and the impact of the work.
The conversation will be facilitated by Golden Thread artistic associate and published author Haleh
Hatami.
Program Details and Participant Biographies:
Denmo Ibrahim is an Egyptian-American actor, playwright, entrepreneur, healer, and theatre maker
based in San Francisco. Her recent work BABA was selected as the winner of the 2011 HIGHLIGHT series
by Noor Theatre and performed at New York Theatre Workshop. Original commissions include new work
for Golden Thread Productions, Theatre of Yugen, foolsFURY, Shotgun Players, Root Division, 111 Minna,
EXIT Theatre, Bebersee Classical Music Festival and Loire Valley Festival. She is a co-founder of the
award winning performance company Mugwumpin and the CEO of Earthbody, an organic day spa for
healing. Denmo holds an MFA in Lecoq-Based: Actor Created Physical Theatre from Naropa University
and a BFA from Boston University. She has spent years in the studio collaborating, devising, demolishing,
and breathing life into new playthings. www.adenmoproject.com
About the work…BABA is a funny, highly physical solo show spanning an epic journey of an Egyptian
father and daughter facing the tribulations of getting from New York to Cairo. Inspired by a true story,
this intimate family tragedy reveals a humorous, calculating man who defies all odds to get his child’s
U.S. passport minutes before departure. Along side his story, we meet his daughter three decades later
in search of her origin to discover the man she never knew.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEEuIYgFLl8
Jennifer Jajeh is a San Francisco based artist. Her one-woman show, I HEART HAMAS: AND OTHER THINGS I’M
AFRAID TO TELL YOU debuted in 2008 at New York’s International Fringe Festival. The show, a smash-hit in
San Francisco where it ran for 12 weeks in Fall 2009, continued onto theatrical runs in Minneapolis
Chicago, and Los Angeles in 2010-11. Jajeh has also produced and directed award winning independent
film and video projects that have screened nationally and internationally in film festivals, museums, and
universities. Her work has been profiled by the KRON 4 News, WBAI NYC, Link TV, the Washington Post,
the San Francisco Chronicle, and NOX Magazine Jordan. Named one of Fen Magazine's 2011 Artists to
Watch, she is currently at work on a new web series, IN BED WITH JEN JAJEH. Jennifer is honored to be
presenting alongside this group of talented women.
About the work…With the current ongoing conflicts in the Middle East, the threat of global terrorism,
and the never-ending negotiations and hostilities between Israelis and Palestinians, it’s hard not to feel
overwhelmed by all of the bad international news. That’s exactly how Jennifer Jajeh feels. And to make
matters worse, Jennifer is Palestinian. Well, Palestinian American. Or more precisely: a single, Christian,
first generation, Palestinian American woman who chooses to return to her parents’ hometown of
Ramallah at the start of the Second Intifada. Join her on American and Palestinian soil on auditions, bad
dates, and across military checkpoints as she navigates the thorny terrain around Palestinian identity.
Weaving together humor, slides, pop culture references and live theatre, Jajeh explores how she
becomes Palestinian-ized, then politicized and eventually radicalized in a fresh, often funny, searingly
honest way. http://youtu.be/YRW4TzwNhVs
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Rohina Malik is a Chicago-based playwright, actress and solo performance artist. She was born and
raised in London, England, of South Asian heritage. Rohina is a resident playwright at Chicago
Dramatists, an artistic associate at the 16th Street Theater, and she was one of the four writers in the
inaugural group of The Goodman Theater's Playwrights Unit. Her one woman play UNVEILED had its
World Premiere in May 2009 at the 16th Street Theater, where it received critical acclaim, and the
entire run and extension was sold out. UNVEILED received a second production at Victory Gardens
Theater, a third production at Next Theater, and a fourth production at Brava Theater, San Francisco.
Her plays YASMINA'S NECKLACE and THE MECCA TALES (a Goodman commission) were both developed and
had staged readings at The Goodman Theater.
About the work… UNVEILED is the story of Noor and Moroccan Mint tea. Racism. Hate crimes. Love.
Islam. Culture. Language. Life. Five Muslim women in a post-9/11 world serve tea and uncover what lies
beneath the veil in this compelling one-woman show. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7ATqMIQ18&feature=related
Maryam Rostami is a San Francisco based drag queen and contemporary performance artist from Texas.
Her work deals with the complexities of the modern condition through the lens of an overachieving child
of model minorities. She involves audiences on a visual, intellectual and emotional level, and is
dedicated to artistic engagement as an invitation for thinking about, looking at and talking to one
another differently. Her drag/nightlife persona, Mona G. Hawd, uses lipsync, movement, narrative,
dance and an exaggerated high femme medium to question ownership of images in our culture.
About the work… PERSEPOLIS, TEXAS: FOBSPRING TO DRAG QUEEN is Maryam’s debut solo show and played to
packed audiences in at CounterPULSE in the summer of 2011. It is a compilation of many characters that
respond to her experience growing up as a child of Iranian immigrants in Texas, reflected by the drag
queen that she has become here in San Francisco.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uwcyG1BcZ0s
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Started in 1909 in the U.S., International Women’s Day (8 March) is an occasion marked by women’s
groups around the world. This date is also commemorated at the United Nations and is designated in
many countries as a national holiday. When women on all continents, often divided by national
boundaries and by ethnic, linguistic, cultural, economic and political differences, come together to
celebrate their Day, they can look back to a tradition that represents at least nine decades of struggle
for equality, justice, peace and development.
Founded in 1996, Golden Thread Productions is dedicated to exploring Middle Eastern cultures and
identities as expressed around the globe. We present alternative perspectives of the Middle East by
developing and producing theatrical work that is aesthetically varied and politically and viscerally
engaging, while supporting countless Middle Eastern artists in all phases of their careers. Our mission is
to make the Middle East a potent presence on the American stage and also to make theatre a treasured
cultural experience within Middle Eastern communities. We build cultural bridges by engaging the
community in an active dialogue and facilitating collaborations among artists of diverse backgrounds
with the aim of creating a world where the common human experience supersedes cultural and political
differences. www.goldenthread.org
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